During operation of conventional boilers, normal wear and tear causes the burner, of a conventional combustion boiler, to periodically require servicing or, in some instances, be completely replaced. While a variety of known burner replacement burners and systems are currently available on the market, many of the burner replacement systems are not particularly adapted for reducing the NOx (nitrogen oxides) byproducts which result from combustion of a fuel, such as coal.
As is well known in the prior art, a reducing agent may be added to the combustion boiler, prior to the combustion byproducts exhausting from the combustion boiler, in order to reduce the amount of NOx remaining in the exhaust stream as the exhaust stream exits from the combustion boiler. The reducing agent is generally dispersed in the upper region of the combustion boiler and allowed to react with the combustion byproducts prior to the combustion byproducts being exhausted from the combustion boiler. A couple of methods of applying a reducing agent, to the combustion byproducts of a combustion boiler, are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,902,488 and 6,280,695, for example.
As used in the specification and the appending claims, the terms “NOx” and “nitrogen oxides” are used interchangeably to refer to the nitric oxide (NO) and the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) chemical species. Other oxides of nitrogen, such as N2O, N2O3, N2O4 and N2O5, are well known but these species are generally not emitted, in any significant quantities, from stationary combustion sources (except for possible N2O). Thus, while the term “nitrogen oxides” can be used more generally to encompass all binary N—O compounds, it is used herein to refer in particular to the NO and NO2 (e.g., NOx species).